Make A Wish! {To Hong Kong with Jackie Chan}

I was lucky enough to be a part of my younger brothers wish. He suffers from a brittle bone disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta and Spina bifida Occulta. Back in August I called the Make A Wish foundation and referred him. They spoke with his doctors and determined that he was a candidate to receive a wish. (Hooray- kind of... In finding out that he is eligible, we had the realization that he has a "life-threatening" illness. We already new this, but it is a heavy realization.) So we got him to start thinking of what he would wish for.

Wishes (In order)

1: Meet Jackie Chan and go to China (We were told that is actually two wishes, so he said "Meet Jackie Chan")

2: Go on a New York City shopping Spree- and to a Yankees game

3: Design his own action figure and have it sold in Toy Stores

So there were the wishes and now the waiting begins...

Well, the last week of April Daynes wish granters called my Mom and said to get your passports ready because they may be an opportunity to meet Jackie Chan.

One week later they called and said that they have it all ready and we will fly out on May 1st at 8:00 am.

The Make a Wish foundation is amazing. Not only did they pay for all the travel costs, hotels, transportation, they also gave each person going a check to cover food costs while there.

Well, I feel very thankful that I was able to go and be a part of his wish, to watch his face as he met his hero. Of course he had high expectations of Mr. Chan. He didn't just want to meet him. He wanted Jackie Chan to be his karate teacher. We warned him that it would be hard to accommodate that with him living in a different country and all. Dayne thought about it for a while and said... "Maybe just one lesson then?" Well Jackie Chan spent quite a bit of time teaching Dayne some moves. He took us to dinner with his friends and took us on a tour of his office. He was so kind. He gave us all gifts, snacks, and attention.

Thanks Dayne for letting me be a part of his wish, and to the Make A Wish Foundation for making Daynes wish a reality.

China is NOT handicap accessible! Dayne was dying for McDonalds (But only if they had BBQ sauce-They did!) The only way to get this for him was to truck him DOWN A MILLLION STAIRS, then take the wheelchair down, then do this all over again to get back up. It was totally worth it. Without McDonalds we might just have starved to death in Hong Kong!
I seriously love this kid. I remember when I got married, Dayne was 5 years old. He cried on my wedding day and told Nic how mad he was that Nic was taking away his sister.
This picture was taken in the LA airport. We had survived our 1ST of 20 hours of flights. Not including our 9 hours of layovers. Dayne was a champ on the planes. All us adults were complaining of how uncomfortable we were but even with all his broken bones and swollen legs not a single complaint was made.
Note: Chinese food in China is Not as good as Chinese food in the USA!
Appearantly it is okay to hang your dirty undies outside of your place of work!!!! Seriously!!!
I loved the city of Hong Kong at night. This night in particular I was a little anxious that there may be some natural disaster involving water and I wouldn't make it home to my family.. (Haha- didn't happen)
I love this picture. Jackie Chan is so nice! He is in person just how he is in his movies. Same personality. Look at Daynes face, he is in heaven!
Karate Lesson #1


Me and my Mom in Jackie Chans office bathroom.

Lot's of Pictures...

I am sitting here listening to y new favorite song "Whole Wide World" By Mindy Gledhill, if you haven't heard it you should check it out.

So I suck at the whole blogging thing and have no idea the order that these pictures will show up in. So here is a random run-down of descriptions of this unorganized post.

First of all this year has been so fun so far. I had the opportunity to stay with my sister in St. George for a few weeks total time to help out with her cute baby, my nephew Jackson. I love this little man. He was born Feb. 5.

And somewhere in this mix is a picture of my Grandpa Peterson ad two of my three little girlies. I have been so blessed to spend tons of time with my Grandpa. He had Bilateral knee replacement surgery and has been staying with my mom. Luckily I am a full-time Nurse for Harmony Home Health and Hospice and my full-time patient is my younger brother Dayne, so I get to see my family every day. Usually I will take one of the girls each time I work so they get a "Special attention day". They love it and so do I. I get to be a mom and get paid at the same time.







On March 20th my tiny little Preslee turned 5! I cannot believe she is starting kindergarten this year! We had her party at Boondocks. It was cold, but so fun. We were only missing one cousin- Kai'a, and MISS her we did. From the pictures we've seen she is getting squishy and we cannot wait to squeeze her! Little Noa in the blue sweater is so fun! He is Nic's brother Jamies son and I LOVE him! He can give some great kisses!

And last, There are pictures of my sis Giana, She passed away on April 15th 2007. We miss her a whole lot. Her birthday was March 22nd. It was hard to celebrate without her...I wonder if it will get easier... Anyway, LOVE LOVE your family and be thankful for them every day because life is short...sometimes too short.

Oh yah, Even though the Jazz lost the game I went to...I became a HUGE fan. We had awesome seats on the eight row. I think security felt bad watching me carry Dayne to his seat, that or they noticed Mr. Nourse, but either way they let us wait for the players and talk to them a bit. They warned us that they would be grumpy, but all in all they were pretty nice.

Life is good, and Im loving mine.

Macbook Pro

It has been 14 months since my last post. I was inspired to post because of my cousins blog, it is so fun to read. It's called Leah Marie, Life is slow-shutter speed. She is so cute.

I just got a new computer and as you can see the kids love it as much as I do. These pictures are awful and shouldn't be posted, but they make me laugh.

I am at work right now. And these pictures were taken at work. I have the greatest job and I can choose to bring the girls if I want. I love it.

The holidays are such busy times and now that it is over, I finally have time to settle down and organize my life. I feel like everything has been so crazy and I was finally able to do a couple much needed things...(seriously I don't really know what I do with my time).

1. Cleaned out my car. Trust me, it is an accomplishment.
2. Registered for some more classes. I am getting my RN by way of testing out of my classes, only I am dragging my feet so bad! I thought it might help motivate me if I started taking some more classes at the College with it, so wish me luck!
3. Getting organized so that I can start and catch up on my little girlies scrapbooks. Once again, wish me luck. Once you get behind it is so hard to catch up.
4. Got my job back. So I had decided to try something new and was working with the Geriatric population, mostly dementia patients. I LOVED working with the dementia patients, but having to be responsible for upwards of 35 patients was just too many. So I am happy to report that I am back where I was and happy to be there.

Our little family is doing great as well. Ellie is finally walking. It took her over 16 months to decide to do it and now she is a pro! And she finally got her teeth. The same week that she decided to walk she got two bottom teeth.
Charli is doing so good in Kindergarten. She is learning so quickly how to read. It is amazing to watch her "mature" as she is learning.
Preslee makes us laugh...then yells at us for laughing. There is always something new with this one. She has gone back to throwing fits. It is really strange, but our life is so busy I feel like throwing crazy tantrums sometimes too.
As for Nic...I have been begging him to read the Twilight series for so long. So that when we go see the movies he will LOVE them instead of just liking them, and currently he is sitting by my side reading Twilight. LOL.

Anyway, my brother-in-law got married over Christmas and I got some fun pictures of our family.
It would be very abnormal to have a family function without one of my children crying. Made for a good picture though!

We told Preslee to give Ellie a hug for our picture. She tackled her and did just that.

I don't even know what to say about this one...other than I LOVE IT! I love how pictures catch so much of our childrens personalities.

Handsome Lunnen men.

Just like I said...PeRsOnAlItY! This is so typical of each girl.

Ellie kept pulling this face when we would tell her to smile.

My wonderful in-laws.

Whew! That was long.

HaPpY hAlLoWeEn!!!

Cute Ellie-bug. Grandma Val is in the background talking to Grandpa Rob. We really wish he could have been here to see the girls.

Such beautiful princesses!


This picture is of Nic's mom and the girls.

Our little family.

This year Halloween was so fun. Preslee and Charli were at such good ages. They ran from house to house and after each house gave them candy they would look in their buckets and say "Nope- we don't have enough yet, let's keep on going." Preslee would giggle the whole way between houses. Ellie-bug sat in the stroller the whole time just so happy. And of course the weather was awesome. We had so much fun! I love my girls!

We have been busy.

Charli started kindergarten last week. I feel so old! But, she loves it and that makes me happy. I always pictured the first day of kindergarten with me and Charli both crying because she wouldnt want to go. That is not at all how it went. She giggled the whole way there because she was so excited to meet all her classmates. The only one that cried was Preslee because her playmate was leaving.

We went to California for a week right before Charli started school. We went to Disneyland, the beach, Sea World, and the San Diego Zoo. Towards the end of the trip my brother Dayne flew out to spend some time with us. We were so glad he did and we had a great time.

Nics dad loves to feed Ellie. He gave her this rib and she loved it. As soon as we took it away she just screamed.

Poor Preslee was having some wierd reaction to the combination of the heat and humidity and got a huge raised rash across her face. The only nice thing was that it really didnt bother her at all.

Nics parents were visiting his sister in California the same time we were there so we were able to meet up and hang out with them.

I love beach pictures.

We waited in line for almost 2 hours to see the princesses but the girls felt it was way worth it.